Saturday, February 11, 2012

Rusted Pipe

As much plumbing as we are doing with the bathroom, the last thing I wanted to hear from 710 at 19:00 last night was, "we have a situation".

I mean, that can never be good, right?

One of the guest bedrooms is currently housing much of our clothes, our laundry etc. We keep the door closed during the day so it keeps down on dust and such from the construction. But when 710 went to go change after work, his socks became wet.....because the carpet was wet....because there was a leak that made the carpet wet.....and part of the bed....and the nightstand....and the clothes stacked on the bed.

Fuck.

We already have an expensive project underway. A plumber - scratch that - a weekend plumber, was not in our cash plans.

After some poking around, and a hole in the ceiling, by 710 (I went out with my man-date, Scott, for dinner), he found it was the sewer line from the third floor bathroom. We're not sure what happened exactly (no actual sewage was involved - don't worry or get grossed out), but the construction folks did shut off the water today for the inspection and did a pressure test. Maybe too much pressure?

So, it was a very slow drip, just for hours, going unnoticed. Now with the water shut off on the third floor what was still left in the pipes trickled and was contained in a bucket, but still it will have to be fixed. Not necessarily a weekend house call that could bankrupt us put the plumber's kid through grad school. Of course, then we have to fix the ceiling. The nightstand is a goner. The veneer is completely ruined.

Blobby will be doing extra laundry this weekend of anything that got dripped on and had bits of plaster come down from the ceiling.

....and this folks, is another reason I hate renovation.

(and no, when we patch the hole, then the blog post will be the Beatles' "Fixing a Hole", but until then.....)

With a pipe union, the two pipe ends don’t screw into one another—they each screw into a third piece. When one pipe needs to come apart from the other, the union piece simply screws onto one of the two pipes completely.